theROCK

Community

The loss of community has been the hardest consequence of this pandemic and has dramatically changed our lives. What had been classes, family gatherings, and Masses, became “virtual” classes, meetings, and Masses. These are awesome alternatives, but they don’t replace being with one another. There is nothing like physical proximity and contact. For now, it is what we have.

As we return to having those direct interactions with one another, we realize what we’ve been missing. Yesterday, I had class with my fellow brothers in formation, and it was awesome to be together. My daughter and her family were also at that class, so that I could “practice” marry her. It was an emotionally supercharged day because of the rite and being with those I love.

This points out how important community is. Jesus knew that, and gave us the gift of the Eucharist to unite us to Him and to one another. While being physically separate doesn’t change that union, being together is clearly better. I trust that as we return to “normal” you will feel the restoration of the profound community that is Christ in the Eucharist.

Anger vs. Patience

I am finding myself angry these days. I don’t normally make it a practice to be angry as it is, in my mind, a wasted emotion. Good rarely comes of it. However, I am angry. When I have a moment, I try to get at the core of what is angering me. I think it is the enormity of speculation surrounding us. Speculation that is taken as fact. Speculation leads to gossip and rumor. I find these things very dangerous for a person’s psyche and mental and emotional well-being. There is very little right now that is making sense to me; fact is blurred, logic has been lost, contradiction is the norm. I try to stay the course – essentially lowering my head and moving forward with what facts are in place –and do what I need to do. Speculation is driving me nuts! I am hanging on to what isn’t changing to keep me sane and to stay grounded. My heart hurts. My head hurts. I’ve had enough of this change.

While I could just stop there and wallow in my own pity, I’m not going to. Anger is a vice. It’s corresponding virtue is patience. I am, we are, being called to virtue. Patience just happens to be one of the virtues that is hard for me. I want things done yesterday. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense why this situation is angering me. I want to get on with it, and I can’t. I need to have patience. Patience with God’s plan. Patience with God’s time. This all leads back to the
concept of total surrender. Just when you think you are there, you are not there. I went to one of my spiritual sages, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, to put myself back in check. I found this nugget:

To surrender to God means that we offer him our will, our reason, our life. We do this in pure faith, even if our soul is in darkness. Truly, trials and sufferings are the surest test of blind surrender. Surrender is also a sign of our true love for God and for souls. If we really love others, we must be ready to take their place, to take their sins upon ourselves and to expiate them through penance and continual mortification. We must be living holocausts for those
souls who are most in need. 

God's Timing

For a long time whenever I read John 11, the story of Lazarus whom Jesus raised from the dead, I identified with Martha and Mary in deep pain and crying out, questioning Jesus’ timing. However, in re-reading, I realized even if Jesus had left right when he got word that Lazarus was ill, Lazarus would still have been dead upon his arrival. Even when I realized this, I was still mad at Jesus for not leaving right away, because he was delaying his arrival, delaying his time to mourn together with Martha and Mary.

This feeling is likely a result the difficult days in-between my grandfather’s passing and his funeral. It was hard to mourn him without all the other people who were part of my memories of him being there while they traveling to be with us. Then I realized, that through this, Jesus shows us both his humanity and his divinity.

Jesus shows His humanity in the limitations of human travel, which prevented him from being at Lazarus’ side while he was dying, and in weeping at the death of his friend. He also shows his divinity, not only in raising Lazarus but also in the prudence to wait so as to perform a greater a miracle in sight of all those who gathered, that they might believe in Jesus.

In a similar way, we might be profoundly feeling the loss of the sacrament of the Eucharist right now, but Jesus is with us, and He will continue to perform miracles, even if they aren’t exactly when we desire them to be.